Now this is a truth, for which I call Lovel, his lady, Mrs. Bonnington and Captain Clarence Baker, as witnesses. Well, then, whilst Lady B. was adjuring the portrait, it is a fact that a string of Cecilia’s harp—which has always been standing in the corner of the room under its shroud of Cordovan leather—a string, I say, of Cecilia’s harp cracked, and went off with a loud _bong_, which struck terror into all beholders. Lady Baker’s agitation at the incident was awful; I do not like to describe it—not having any wish to say anything tragic in this narrative—though that I _can_ write tragedy, plays of mine (of which envious managers never could be got to see the merit) I think will prove, when they appear in my posthumous works. Baker has always averred that at the moment when the harp-string broke, her heart broke too. But as she lived for many years, and may be alive now for what I know; and as she borrowed money repeatedly from Lovel—he must be acquitted of the charge which she constantly brings against him of hastening her own death, and murdering his first wife Cecilia. “The harp that once in Tara’s Halls” used to make such a piteous feeble thrumming, has been carted off I know not whither; and Cecilia’s portrait, though it has been removed from the post of honour (where, you conceive, under present circumstances it would hardly be _àpropos_) occupies a very reputable position in the pink room up-stairs, which that poor young Clarence inhabited during my visit to Shrublands. All the house has been altered. There’s a fine organ in the hall, on which Elizabeth performs sacred music very finely. As for _my_ old room, it would trouble you to smoke _there_ under the present government. It is a library now, with many fine and authentic pictures of the Lovel family hanging up in it, the English branch of the house with the wolf crest, and _Gare à la louve_ for the motto, and a grand posthumous portrait of a Portuguese officer (Gandish), Elizabeth’s late father. As for dear old Mrs. Bonnington, she, you may be sure, would be easily reconciled to any live mortal who was kind to her, and any plan which should make her son happy; and Elizabeth has quite won her over. Mrs. Prior, on the deposition of the other dowagers, no doubt expected to reign at Shrublands, but in this object I am not very sorry to say was disappointed. Indeed, I was not a little amused, upon the very first day of her intended reign—that eventful one of which we have been describing the incidents—to see how calmly and gracefully Bessy pulled the throne from under her, on which the old lady was clambering.